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Indra and I have been to a quite a few events in London recently on the topic of women in politics. The overwhelming feeling at these events is one of despair and anger. The speakers, quite rightly,…Continue

Lithuania elected its first ever female President today with an overwhelming 69% of the vote. Apparently people in Lithuania are tired of the political system and want something different. I guess an…Continue

What is the Downing Street Project?

The Downing Street Project is a ground-breaking initiative to promote and enable balanced leadership between men and women at every level of society, up to and including 10 Downing Street. Despite constituting 51% of the UK population, women still hold only 11% of directorships in business boardrooms, 36.9% of top jobs in the health service and 19.5% of seats in the Houses of Parliament.

Research has shown that women are excellent mediators, networkers and problem solvers. They are skilled at keeping cool in a crisis and willing to develop themselves in the face of difficulty. The Downing Street Project founders believe that these qualities are called for to address the challenges we currently face; that women have a responsibility to step up to take leadership roles.

This is not a call for simple numerical equality, but a plea for deep cultural change. How can we move on from our ‘hard powered’ ethos – with its excessive risk, competition and reliance on force – to a ‘softer powered’ public space? One more reliant on co-operation, co-creation and what President Obama describes as “the power of our example” – being the change we wish to see?

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"Please don't worry about the autocorrect - no problem at all! I am originally from Ukraine, but even there my name is rather rare, so people often mispronounce and misspell it. I am used to all sorts of spelling of my name and don't even…"

"Thanks Zoryna (btw it was Apple that auto-corrected your name wrongly before!). In particular I would be interested to hear how you think our balanced leadership approach differs from a purely feminist one: it was the most difficult piece to…"

" Hello, Indraadnan.
Thank you for approving my membership.
I think it is a fantastic idea to have a project like this one, particularly because it incubated a lot of new projects.
Will explore your site with great…"

"Hi Zorya - thanks for applying to join the network. As you will quickly see, it has been quiet for a while now as most of the original signees have developed their own projects and the focus has shifted. However, please do spend a bit of time…"